


A Ghost Upon the Moor

by PetraPan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slow Burn, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 03:48:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12719025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetraPan/pseuds/PetraPan
Summary: Dean had been dragged from his home in Kansas to live with a father he does not know, to a place where there wasn't a single person his own age. With sprawling green hills and a labyrinth of gardens, Campbell Manor was the pride of Illinois, but there were too many rules for his own liking. What kind of home had rooms that were forbidden, after all? Dean had made friends with Anna, one of the maids, and there must have been a hundred more workers on the property but he still felt lonely.At least, until he decided to investigate the mysterious weeping he heard from one of the forbidden rooms. At least, until he met Castiel.Or, the Secret Garden AU no one asked for. With a twist.





	A Ghost Upon the Moor

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Gabrielle Aplin's "Start of Time."
> 
> This story has taken me forever to write and feel confident enough to publish. It's a work in progress and I'm still in classes for the semester, so updates will be slow, but hopefully I can find a good rhythm and keep you interested. Stick with me, friends. I want to plant something.

_"There's a ghost upon the moor tonight,_  
_Now it's in our house._  
_When you walked into the room just then,_  
_It's like the sun came out."_

               -Gabrielle Aplin "Start of Time"

 

The gray morning was filtering through his thick curtains, painting him pale and sickly as he tossed and turned in bed. He was stuck in the dream, trying to fight his way against the suffocating terror and the tangled sheets. The howling from the wind across the hills echoed in his nightmare, mutating into a thick scream that covered him in chills.

Thunder cracked through the room and Dean shot up in bed, sweating, but finally awake. Breathing harshly, he wiped the damp off his face with the crumpled corner of his bedsheets.

He looked around quietly, slowly, reassuring himself that he was no longer asleep. The old grandfather clock was ticking away, steady as a heartbeat. Wind and rain beat against his windows and Dean crawled out of bed to push the heavy drapes away.

 _Another wet, dreary day,_ he thought with a scowl on his face. It felt like he’d been here for an eternity even though he knew it had only been about a month, and most days the sun didn’t so much as peek through the clouds. Confined by the weather to the room he occupied—and what bits of the unnecessarily large home he was allowed to explore—Dean had seen more of the inside of the house that he had the actual grounds.

With sprawling green hills and a labyrinth of gardens, Campbell Manor was the pride of Illinois. The knowledge of that made Dean frown. He missed Kansas and its empty fields, the people he’d left behind so abruptly. Mrs. Harvelle had been kind to him to let him live with her and her children. He'd grown up there. She was a mother to him after he'd lost his own. Her daughter had been great fun, and her adopted son, Ash, though strange, was always interesting to hang around with. They’d spent every moment together, until suddenly, a letter came from Dean’s father, whom he hadn’t seen since he was very young, demanding he come home. Dean couldn’t have even pictured what the man looked like if it hadn’t been for the photo of himself as a baby, held in his mother’s arms and with a smiling John Winchester wrapped around them both. He didn’t understand why he was here, but being taken from his friends and home had made him hate the man, and this place, even more.

Thunder cracked again, a heavy sound that made the walls shake. Another glance at the clock told him that it was 5:15 in the morning. The day would soon start for everyone else in the house. Maids would be out and about doing whatever it was they did—and Dean thought it fairly ridiculous and outdated that _maids_ were needed—although he supposed with a house this size, it would be difficult to maintain with just a few people. _But,_ Dean thought, biting his lip and glancing towards his bedroom door, _no one is up yet_.

Opening his door was a tricky thing; the old wood had a tendency to squeak and groan in age, but Dean managed minimal sound with patience. He slipped into the long corridor and moved quick and quiet to the right, past several doors he knew led to empty guest rooms and sitting areas. He came to the staircase and looked down the wide spiral, straining to hear or see any movement in the dim lighting.

When he figured it was safe, he headed down to the first floor and went left. He’d never been this way before, usually ushered to the right, or back behind the staircase to the kitchen and mudroom by the incredibly intimidating Ms. Naomi. Dean wasn’t sure if that was her first name or last, but he didn’t really care to find out. The woman made him feel like he was a stain on the existence of the world, and encounters with her left his skin crawling. But she ran the house in his father’s absence, so being near her was sometimes unavoidable.

Dean slowed his steps at the thought of his father. What if he was home? What if his rooms were down this hallway? Dean shook his head and continued on. The last two times his father had come home from his travels far away, he had asked to see Dean, then decided against it at the last minute. _He won’t want to see me this time, either,_ Dean thought bitterly. He never stayed long anyway, a day, maybe two, before running away to wherever the hell he went.

He came to a door that was more ornate than the others, gold plating along the edges and delicate scrollwork behind the door knobs. He took one in hand and hoped fervently that the door would open quietly, then turned the knob.

Silent as a whisper, the door opened and Dean gave his eyes a moment to adjust. This room was darker than the hallway, but after a minute or two, he was able to see the towering shelves filled top to bottom with books. Dean’s mouth opened in a silent **O**. He’d never seen so many books in one place before. Faintly, he could make out a spiral staircase that led to a second floor of books, but he couldn’t see much else in the darkness and didn’t dare turn on a light.

As he was closing the door, vowing to come back another night with something to help him see, a cry permeated the silence and made Dean freeze, panic icing his veins. He’d been caught!

After a moment, he realized that no one had grabbed and dragged him back to his rooms, but that the repetitive echoing noises were the sounds of crying. _A ghost?_ His mind supplied immediately. Dean shook the thought aside. That would be ridiculous; ghosts weren’t real. No, these cries were very human, and the sounds of someone in pain…

Dean carefully closed the library door and crept further down the hallway, following the mournful sound.

The sobs became louder and more frantic as he went, until he stopped where he believed they were emanating from. Odd, that it seemed the noise was coming from behind the floor to ceiling tapestry he stood next to. He was Indiana Jones, grabbing the edge of the tapestry and pulling it to the side.

A door! Dean was thrilled to find heavy, dark wood hidden behind the thick fabric. He didn’t dare open it to see who was crying, but stood still to listen. He couldn’t tell much from the weeping, but he assumed that they were coming from someone young. A boy, perhaps.

Dean wondered why no one had told him that there was someone else living here. This was _his_ father’s home, after all.

There was another great rumble of thunder, the loudest yet, and it made the person behind the door scream and cry with more intensity than before. The hair on the back of Dean’s neck stood straight up, and he quickly dropped the tapestry back in place and raced back down the hall the way he’d come, trying to create as much distance as he possibly could between himself and the shrieking. He was back upstairs and at his bedroom door, echoes of the tortured cries moving through the house, just as he heard doors slamming and frantic feet from downstairs.

Dean sighed in relief; he’d escaped just in time.

As he closed the door behind him, the wind and rain a much more prominent sound now that he was next to windows, Dean realized that he could still hear the cries from downstairs, though they were dulled through the door, and quite faint now. Haunting, even.

He climbed back into bed and huddled under the covers. How many nights had he lain here, thinking that those cries were sounds of whistling wind from outside? How many times had he ignored the thought that it was a person because anytime he’d asked Ms. Naomi she’d thinned her mouth into nonexistence and told him not to ask such ridiculous questions, _of course_ the sound was coming from outside.

Dean covered his ears and shivered, knowing he’d never be able to go back to sleep tonight after hearing those screams. He _had_ to find out who was behind that door.

* * *

 “Good morning, Dean. You’re up early!” Anna walked into the bedroom, cheerful as ever, and with a tray of honeyed biscuits and cinnamon oatmeal that made Dean’s mouth water. She was a little surprised to see Dean awake, out of bed, and dressed. Usually, it was only the smell of breakfast that dragged him out from his covers, and she smiled at the thought.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Dean said, and grinned at her laugh as she sat the tray down at a round table, then tucked a loose strand of fiery red hair behind her ear.

“Don’t start with that this morning,” she warned teasingly.

“Aw, but it’s so much fun,” Dean complained.

“I have too much to do to be distracted by your flirting,” Anna stated, brushing her hands off on her apron.

“What do you have to do today?” Dean asked, grabbing a biscuit. They were flaky and still warm, the honey rich and sweet on his tongue.

“Chores.”

“What about when you get off?”

“I’ll go home.” She began to yank his bed into some semblance of order.

“And what will you do when you get home?” He pressed.

She turned her head and winked at him over her shoulder. “Chores.”

“How can you do chores here and then more chores when you go home?” Dean asked, bewildered.

“There’s a lot to be done at home.”

“But it’s so boring here; I need something to do!”

She pointed harshly at his oatmeal and Dean grudgingly sat down to eat it. “You could try going outside.”

“It’s rained ever since I got here.”

She scoffed at him. “It hasn’t been heavy rain, you could still go outside.”

“Did you _not_ hear the thunder this morning?” Anna gave him a mild look and said nothing in response.

He groaned. “C’mon Anna, when’s your next day off?”

She rolled her eyes at him. "You know it's tomorrow. I'm always off on Sundays.”

“We can go into town or something.”

She fluffed up his pillows, surveyed her work and nodded in satisfaction at her finished task, then turned to Dean with a smile. He’d sounded so hopeful it was almost hard to turn him down. “Tomorrow I’ll be going to town _alone_ to run some errands for my mother.” She frowned slightly at his disappointed look and said, “I’m sorry, I’m flattered, _really_ , but Dean, I don’t think you understand.”

She rested herself against the wardrobe that sat against the wall and crossed her arms. “We don’t have much money at home and my mother works hard to support us. I help out as much as I can, being the oldest, and some days it still isn’t enough. I have a younger sister and 5 younger brothers, one of which is _your age_. If you’re trying to ask me on a date, it’s not going to work, because each time I look at you I see Castiel.”

Dean wrinkled his nose at the odd name. “Who’s Castiel?”

“My brother, pay attention. He’s sixteen.”

“Why haven’t I ever seen him before?” Dean wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed his chair back so he could stand.

Anna straightened the covers again, unnecessarily, and ignored the question.

"You could bring him to work with you." Anna shook her head sharply.

"C'mon," Dean pleaded, drawing the word out.

"No, Dean." This time it was her voice that was sharp.

“I don’t see why not,” Dean mumbled with a shrug.

“Ms. Naomi would have my head,” Anna said seriously. “She’d fire me, and I need this job!”

She took the extra blanket that had fallen to the floor when she’d tugged on his covers and began to neatly fold it. “You should go outside.” She set the folded blanket at the foot of Dean’s bed. “The fresh air will be good for you. Castiel always spent more time outside than in.”

“But it’s raining!” Dean exclaimed.

“Is it?” Anna questioned as she threw open the drapes to show the sun coming out of hiding.

Dean’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“But it was just—” he started, and still didn’t know how to finish.

“We’ve fickle skies, here,” Anna told him with a wink as she headed for the door. “Go, Dean! You could do with some sun,” she called over her shoulder.

“Does Castiel look like you?” Dean imagined a willowy boy with red hair and light blue eyes, a rod-straight nose.

“No, not at all. But you'd know him if you saw him.”

"Where would he usually be?" Dean huffed and dropped to his hands and knees to drag his boots from under the bed.

Anna smiled sadly and said to her feet, "He used to spend all his time at the border of the Campbell-Moore grounds. Their horse liked him. I could always find him there when I wanted to."

Before Anna left, she peeked her head around the door to smile lightly at Dean one more time. “He would have liked you. He's got a heart for lost creatures.”

The door closed and Dean looked at the space where she had been standing, bewildered. “The hell did that mean?”


End file.
